Cotton Mather's a companion for communicants and rhetorical genre

Abstract

The incredibly complex Cotton Mather, whose career bridged the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, is a rewarding subject for the study of rhetorical genre. He was both the last major conserver of hallowed Puritan tradition and the harbinger of rapid change, not only in Puritan theology but also in Puritan rhetorical theory and practice. Mather's Companion for Communicants exemplifies the transitional nature of his thinking and preaching, as well as the “fundamental truth” of rhetorical genre: the rhetoric of any individual or social movement—like the person himself, or the movement itself—is a becoming, not a being.